Grail Knight: Number 5 in series (Outlaw Chronicles) (6 page)

And so, as Robin and I walked south, skirting an apple orchard and making our way round towards the Abbey’s main gate, under my beggar’s rags I wore the square cuir bouilli chest and back armour, and I could feel the T-bar of the lance-dagger, which was secure in its holster on my back, nudging my shoulder blades with every stride. At the bottom of the rough cloth bag that I carried over my shoulder, buried beneath an old chemise and a dirty pair of hose, was a flanged mace that Goody had given me some years ago: a two-foot-long shaft of oak topped with a heavy iron head to which six flat, triangular pieces of iron were welded in a circle. That, too, was a fearsome weapon capable, in the right hands, of smashing limbs and cracking skulls. And I had one final piece of killing equipment: a long, thin but very strong stabbing dagger, triangular in section, known as a misericorde. This weapon, sheathed in leather, hung from my belt at the back, above my right buttock. It was hidden from sight by the raggedy cloak that I wore – but I was not too concerned about it being detected. Even a beggar might choose to carry a dagger for his own defence while walking through outlaw-infested Sherwood.

Although I had made Robin promise that we would not hurt any of the Abbey folk unless it was absolutely necessary, I was not prepared to be captured by the canons and tried and hanged as a thief. If a man’s life stood between me and freedom, I was quite prepared to take his life and repent of it most sincerely afterwards.

As we approached the main entrance in the outer wall of Welbeck Abbey, the sun was already low in the western sky and we joined a thin line of poorly dressed folk filing through a small wooden judas gate set in a much larger double gate. As Robin and I shuffled up to the narrow oblong door, and stepped through over the wooden lip and into the Abbey, we kept our heads down and our eyes lowered. We were greeted at the door by a canon in the white robes of the Premonstratensian Order, and asked our names and our business. Robin replied in a muffled old-man’s croak that we were two pilgrims from Oakham in the county of Rutland travelling to Durham to pray at the shrine of St Cuthbert there.

‘My brother Edgar here is much afflicted with boils and foul diseases of the skin, Your Holiness, and St Cuthbert came to me in a dream and promised that if we journeyed there and prayed with pure hearts before his image, and washed all over with holy water, he might be cured…’

The canon, a glossy-looking man of middle years, peered under my hood at my broad eye-patch and dirty, bloody, oatmeal-encrusted face and visibly flinched.

‘Wa-ugh! Yes, yes, I see. Well, you are welcome, my brothers, the dormitory is yonder’ – he pointed at a large building on the far side of the courtyard – ‘and supper will be served in the refectory after Vespers. God be with you.’ He ushered us into the Abbey with a flap of his hand and a shudder, being careful not to make contact with our noisome rags, and turned his shiny, well-scrubbed face to the next bedraggled wretch who sought entrance.

The Abbey buildings were laid out around that square courtyard. Looking back, I noticed that the main door was reinforced with strips of iron and barred by a great plank of oak that rested in two iron brackets fixed to the walls on either side, about ten feet off the ground. The little judas gate opened outwards, I saw, and was fitted with bolts at head and ankle height and a stout brass lock. It was the obvious weak spot and would be targeted by any attacking force, and so the canons had made it doubly secure. To the north, on my left as we entered, was the Church of St James the Great, a massive construction of creamy limestone that occupied the whole of that side of the yard, and a part of the eastern side too, as the transept thrust out at right angles to the main body of the church and formed the first part of the eastern boundary of the courtyard. Beside the transept, on the far side of the square, was a cluster of low buildings that appeared to be the refectory, kitchen and wine cellars. And south of them a long building that the canon had pointed out as the dormitory. In the south-eastern corner stood the cloisters that accommodated the canons and I could just glimpse the pillared interior of a chapterhouse. On the south wall was a small stable block, housing about a dozen horses, and a tall storehouse on two floors. Directly to our right, beside the main gate, stood a large wooden crane in the shape of an upside down letter L, and a group of young canons were unloading heavy barrels from a wagon. They rolled them off, allowing them to fall on a straw pallet, and then rolled them into a large hemp net, which the crane winched upwards by a system of ropes and pulleys attached to its horizontal arm, to the second floor of the storehouse, fifteen feet up in the air. The half dozen men looked fit and strong – unafraid of hard work, many stripped to the waist to display their pale muscular bodies. I hoped I would not have to tangle with any of them, either armed or unarmed; I did not think I could best these strong men without killing them. They were not the only formidable-looking folk in that courtyard: as Robin and I limped towards the dormitory, my lord affecting to breathe with great labour and leaning on his staff a good deal, I noticed a dozen men-at-arms, in hauberks and helmets, with swords strapped to their waists, lounging at a table by the refectory drinking ale and throwing dice to pass the hours. And staring discreetly around the Abbey, I could see a handful of other fighting men, some in mail, some in leather armour, all apparently well armed, sitting here and there. And just then a knight came striding out of the door at the western end of the church, and marched briskly, diagonally across the courtyard, cutting in front of us, heading for the cloisters on the opposite side. The man, who was in his middle years, dark-haired, square-faced and competent-looking with a large prominent nose, was dressed in a long purple robe of fine wool trimmed with squirrel fur. He wore a sword at his waist and a matching dagger; silver spurs were strapped to his riding boots and he passed close enough for me to notice a small mole just below his mouth on the right side.

In the cool space of the dormitory, a long low room with a double line of wooden cots on either wall, Robin and I chose two beds by the door and hunkered down for a brief conference. ‘Well, so far, so good,’ murmured Robin, too low for any of the other inhabitants to hear. Apart from us, it housed half a dozen mangy wretches – men and women of varying ages, who all looked as if they badly needed a hot meal and a dry night’s sleep – and three lean, sun-darkened men in a huddle on the far side, each bearing scallop-shell-adorned staffs and the kind of cloth shoulder bag known as a scrip, that marked them out as pilgrims. A very fat man-at-arms in a torn mail coat was snoring drunkenly on a cot midway down the left-hand row, about a dozen yards from us.

‘I don’t like it,’ I said to Robin in a similarly low tone. ‘There are too many soldiers here for my liking.’

‘The Abbot needs to protect himself, just like anyone else,’ countered Robin. ‘Sherwood is a dangerous place.’ His silver-grey eyes twinkled. ‘I should know.’

I said no more. I did not want Robin to think that my courage had failed, but I was truly uneasy in myself. I had never seen quite so many armed men doing quite so little in a peaceful House of God before. I told myself that it was merely nerves at the prospect of action and I surreptitiously brushed a hand behind my neck along the crossbar of the lance-dagger. But when one of the pilgrims dropped his staff with a clatter, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Robin and I rested for an hour or so on the narrow straw-filled cots in the dormitory, my lord appearing to sleep like a newborn. I was too tightly wound to rest, and in whatever position I tried I found the handles of either the lance-dagger or the misericorde sticking into my spine and the eye-patch seemed overly tight and itchy. We were roused by the ringing of the church bell, summoning us and the other guests of the Abbey to Vespers, and trooped across the courtyard with almost the entire population of the place, more than a hundred souls. We all moved solemnly through the western doors into the large nave. I smelled the familiar holy stench of stale incense and candle smoke, hot wax and human sweat, and Robin and I pushed our way to the front, stationing ourselves beside a large pillar: as we waited for the senior canons and the Abbot to arrive, I looked at the faces around me: ordinary men and women of all ages, from stick-thin crones to boisterous children, chatting and coughing, and a few men standing with their heads bowed in prayer. But something was awry, something did not sit right. I saw glimpses of iron mail, and here and there the gleam of a sword hilt – yet it was more than the large number of men-at-arms in the congregation, there was an air of something else: expectation, a collective holding of breath. Was I imagining it? Was my skittish mind causing me to see enemies where there were truly none? I could not tell.

Abbot Richard, a short, fattish, stern-featured man, strode into the church, using his tall elaborately carved crosier as a walking staff. His mouth was tight with disapproval – but of what I could not tell. Behind him hurried a dozen of the senior canons and they all took up their places in the choir of the church. As the canons began to chant the opening words of the service –
Deus, in adiutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina …
O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me – I bowed my head and added a similar request to the Almighty that He might protect Robin and myself in this coming task.

‘O Lord,’ I said silently in my heart, ‘I do not seek to profit from this enterprise; I do not look for personal gain: I beg you to shield my master and myself in our hour of danger and make us worthy instruments of your justice. I ask this in the name of your son Our Lord Jesus Christ.’

As I finished my private prayer, I opened my uncovered eye and my gaze reached out to the altar. A young canon holding a rush taper was in the act of lighting the wicks of a dozen candles, fixed in a glorious golden candelabrum on the right-hand side of that holy table. A similar candelabrum on the left was already ablaze.

I caught my breath in wonder.

Between the two sources of light, glowing warmly, reflecting the glory of God magnificently in the drab interior of the church, lay Malloch’s hoard of gold. The centrepiece was a tall crucifix nearly two feet high, the surface of the buttery metal worked with intricate geometrical shapes and patterns. A silver figure of Our Lord was fixed to the golden Tree of Calvary, beautifully wrought, each muscle of Our Saviour’s body clear and distinct, the thorns of his Crown needle sharp, the cheeks of his beloved face as hollow as those of any beggar, and yet that grave, suffering, silver face seemed to be filled with compassion for the world. Before the crucifix and a little to the right blazed a large golden cup – the chalice. Its thick rim, long stem and broad stand were embedded with cut jewels of blue and green, amber and red – each as large as hazelnuts. To the right of the chalice, a broad smooth golden plate, the paten, reflected the candlelight like the sun. And placed around on the snowy altar cloth were half a dozen other pieces of wondrous work: a fine monstrance in the shape of a bright star; a lustrous round pyx like a nugget of pure bullion; a tiny bell with a wooden handle, like a drop of molten sunshine; an elegant long-handled wine jug radiating warmth like a hearth fire…

I was not the only one to be gazing in awe at this display of wealth. Almost every eye there was fixed on the magnificence of the altar. Even if we set aside Malloch Baruch’s exquisite craftwork – and I had truly never seen its equal before – I was staring at a rich man’s ransom in precious metal alone.

I turned to look at Robin and noticed that he had a curious expression on his face. One eye was tightly closed and he had his head cocked to one side. He looked exactly like a goodwife at the market, eyeing up a cut of pork or mutton and, ignoring the patter of the eager-to-sell butcher, trying to guess its true value.

For an obviously wealthy Abbey, the meal served out in the refectory to the bedraggled travellers housed in the dormitory was woefully bad: a watery soup of turnips and bitter herbs; stale bread and powdery, tasteless cheese. As I choked down the last spoonful of soup, I reflected that I had eaten worse meals than this on campaign, but not for a good long while: had I grown soft in the past few months at Westbury? After the meagre meal, Robin and I took to our cots, and while my lord appeared to be enjoying a restful sleep, I struggled once again with the discomfort caused by my disguise and my assorted weaponry as our fellow travellers snuffled and snored and farted all around us.

The eye-patch was itching my brow badly, and I seriously considered taking it off – in that dark dormitory, who would see that I had two good eyes? But I resisted the temptation. I did not want to spoil my disguise just because of a little discomfort. We waited for two interminable hours after the last of the Abbey’s guests had retired, and at, perhaps, an hour before midnight, I felt a hand on my shoulder and saw Robin’s pale face looming beside mine. I rose swiftly and we crept out of the sleeping room as quiet as velvet-shod mice. The door creaked alarmingly, but nobody stirred, and once outside, we paused with our backs to the dormitory wall and silently observed the courtyard: deserted, still and utterly silent. A fat, waxing moon, yellow as a buttercup, hung above the stables on the southern side of the yard, but there was precious little other light, except for a faint glow coming from the stained-glass windows of the church. Robin touched my arm and we walked across to the door of the church on the western side. This one opened with only the tiniest squeak, and we were inside that cool, sacred space. I saw that a single thick candle had been left burning in the centre of the nave, a symbol of the eternal light of Our Lord Jesus Christ – and by that light Robin and I approached the altar where we had so recently admired the shining hoard that rightly belonged to Malloch the goldsmith.

The altar was bare, and for a wild moment, I wondered if some thief had beaten us to the reward. But Robin ignored the altar without comment and made his way to the north transept, and to a small door in a wooden panel that marked off the sacristy. I cursed my own stupidity: of course, the canons would not leave a fortune in plain view of the altar, with the church door unlocked, and the Abbey full of vagrants.